INTRO: Thomas Carlyle had married his secretary, whom he dearly loved, but he was thoughtless and absorbed in his own interests and activities, treating his wife as if she were still his employee.
Stricken with cancer, she was confined to bed for a long time before she died. After her funeral, Carlyle went back to his empty house. Disconsolate and grieving, he wandered around downstairs thinking about the woman he had loved. After a while he went upstairs to her room and sat down in the chair beside the bed on which she had been lying for months. He realized with painful regret that he had not sat there very often during her long illness. He noticed her little diary. While she was alive, he never would have read it, but now that she was gone he felt free to pick it up and thumb through its pages. One entry caught his eye: "Yesterday he spent an hour with me. And it was like being in heaven. I love him so much." He turned a few more pages and read, "I listened all day to hear his steps in the hallway. And now it’s late. I guess he won’t come to see me." Carlyle read a few more entries and then threw the book on the floor and rushed out through the rain back to the cemetery. He fell on his wife’s grave in the mud, sobbing, "If only I had known... if only I had known."
-Relationships are so important. I’m not only speaking about a husband and wife relationship. There are also relationships between parent and child, siblings, relatives, acquaintances, friends, and so on.
-We need to understand everyone needs someone.
Example. Two porcupines in Northern Canada huddled together to get warm, according to a forest folktale. But their quills pricked each other, so they moved apart. Before long they were shivering, so they sidled close again. Soon both were getting jabbed again. Same story; same ending. They needed each other, but they kept needling each other.
-Relationships. At times you feel like you can do without them, but the truth is everyone needs relationships. God did not make us islands unto ourselves.
Today I’m going to begin a series on relationship builders, qualities and truths that will help us in our relationships.
TITLE: Relationship Builders
TEXT: John 13:2-5
I. The setting. Jesus and his disciples
A. In his few final hours with them.
1. By this time Jesus was fully aware of his authority, his divine origin, and his divine destiny.
-He understood he came from heaven.
-He came to do the Father’s will and not his own.
2. The Lord knew the suffering and hardship that lie ahead, and his betrayal by a close friend.
3. There is more in the background of this passage than John tells.
-Luke’s account of their last meal tells that a dispute broke out among the disciples. It was over who was going to be the greatest.
Get the picture: Jesus knows what is about to take place (cross). In fact one friend, Judas, is about to leave to have his set up and the others are sitting around bickering about who’s the greatest.
-It’s to this moment that we can look to see what quality will help build relationships. It is the quality of serving.
B. Jesus gives us the example from his own life.
1. In the midst of this emotional turmoil, what did Jesus do?
-He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. He poured water into a basin and washed the disciple’s feet, then dried them with the towel.
2. The roads of Palestine were unsurfaced and were not kept clean. In dry weather they were dusty and dirty, in wet weather they turned to mud. Ordinary people wore sandals which simply were soles held on to the feet by a few straps. They gave little protection against the dust or the mud of the roads.
-Jesus’ little company of friends had no servants to wash their feet, so the Lord took it upon himself.
3. Understand the culture. The disciples would have been shocked when they saw their master do this. Jewish servants did not wash their master’s feet because it was considered such a menial task. You might get a Gentile servant to do this but never a Jewish servant, let alone a Jewish leader.
Point: Jesus did what none of the disciples was prepared to do—that was to be a servant. II. What strengthens a relationship? It’s doing what no one else will do.
A. Simply put, it’s serving others. When I’m serving others, I’m putting their needs and their wants above my own.
1. Think about it—isn’t that what Jesus did? He put the needs and wants of sinful people above his own over and over again.
-From his first miracle of turning water into wine (in order to help his mother) to his crucifixion (to save mankind from eternal destruction), Jesus put others above himself.
Thought: Jesus was a God who served.
2. Serving destroys that self-centered pride in us. It destroys that thing – that thing that repels friendships with other people, that thing in marriages that turns loving individuals against one another, that thing in families that causes destruction – that horrible thing called self-centered pride.
B. We can see this self-centered pride in our own lives by taking a step back and evaluating our view of others. What is our view of those we perceive to be less fortunate, those who are handicapped, those who have learning disabilities, those who are not the most popular, or those that society would classify as bums or misfits?
1. What is our view of those individuals that nobody wants to be around?
Example. I’ll never forget a young man I had the privilege to minister to. He had some strong opinions about life as well as people. He had an extremely judgmental view about those who were poor. His view went something life this: Those folks are either lazy or stupid. Why don’t they just get right with God? (He came from a prosperity philosophy.) They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
It wasn’t but a few years later when hardship came visiting. He lost his job, his house, car, and almost everything he held dear. I had the opportunity a couple years later to meet up with him. His whole attitude about poor people had changed because he had the experience of being one. The Lord helped him in an attitude adjustment.
2. The British literary giant, Samuel Johnson, was once asked to prepare a funeral sermon for a girl who had died and he asked what her special virtues were. He was told that she was kind to her inferiors. Johnson replied that this was commendable, but that it would be difficult to determine who her inferiors were!
3. James warns us to not show favoritism. -We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
a. When I begin to think I’m better that someone else, what I’m really doing is favoring myself over others.
-I’m feeding that self-centered pride. I may think I’m not like that, but what do my actions and behaviors show?
Question: How do I respond when Bill the Bum or Ned the Nerd is around? Do I go out of my way to show kindness to them just as much as I would to Johnny the Jock?
4. There is a legend of St. Francis of Assisi. In his early days he was very wealthy; nothing but the best was good enough for him; he was an aristocrat of the aristocrats. But he was ill at ease and there was no peace in his soul. One day he was riding alone outside the city when he saw a leper, a mass of sores, a horrible sight. Ordinarily the fastidious Francis would have recoiled in horror from this hideous wreck of humanity. But something moved within him; he dismounted from his horse and flung his arms around the leper; and as he embraced him the leper turned into the figure of Jesus. The nearer we are to suffering humanity, the nearer we are to God.
Summary. Being a servant, or doing what no one else is willing to do, crushes that self-centered pride that no one likes.
Example. In March 1995, the New England Pipe Cleaning Company of Watertown, Connecticut, was digging twenty-five feet beneath the streets of Revere, Massachusetts, in order to clean a clogged 10-inch sewer line.
In addition to the usual materials one might expect to find in a clogged sewer line, the three-man team found 61 rings, vintage coins, eyeglasses, and silverware, all of which they were allowed to keep.
Whether it’s pipes or people, if you put up with some mess, sometimes you find real treasure.
In Conclusion
-The first relationship builder is serving others.
-How are you doing in serving others?
-Today we looked at a situation and saw how Jesus served others. Let him be our example.
